Living by Faith (Vol 15) - The Ability of Faith to meet all our needs

Sunday English Service - 28 OCT 18

Transcript

Please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 3. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. I’ve been teaching on the life of faith for the last several weeks from Hebrews chapter 11, a very famous chapter teaching us faith in the New Testament. Now, the first three verses in this chapter are very important. Later on, we go to a lot of examples. But first three verses are very important because they present to us the doctrine concerning faith. First verse tells us what faith is. It's a substance of things hoped for, or the assurance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. We talked about that. Then the second verse says that for by it the elders obtained a good report or testimony. We're going to see how the elders lived by faith as defined in the first verse, and they obtained a good testimony. And the third verse is an important statement about the entire doctrine concerning faith. It says, by faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made with things which do appear.

For the last two/three weeks, we've been dealing with this. First I told you how to understand this verse. I showed you why we believe that this verse is not simply saying that faith helps us to understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Faith is not simply helping us to understand that, because the phrase ‘by faith’ is used in every verse almost after this verse, every verse begins with the phrase ‘by faith’. And every time it begins with ‘by faith’, it is always talking about some great exploit somebody did, because of faith. The men and women of God, how they lived by faith, and did great exploits. Something great follows ‘by faith’. And if you take that as a pattern, and apply that pattern here in verse 3, it would mean that it is not simply saying that faith helps us to understand that the worlds were framed by God's word, but it means that faith is such a big power, amazing power, a spiritual power or force that created everything that we see today. So, a lot of people interpret it in this way. This is the way they feel it should be understood. Not only the context and the phrase ‘by faith’ helps us to interpret it like that, but also the same teaching is found elsewhere.

In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God created the world by speaking and releasing His power by His words, and creating the world. And then Jesus in Mark chapter 11, speaking to the tree, cursing the tree, the tree withers away, and then He teaches a lesson on faith, saying, “Have faith in God.” And then He says, “Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, ‘Be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea,’ and shall not doubt in his heart, but believes that whatever he says will come to pass, he shall have whatever he says.” So he's talking about how faith can even move mountains. In another place, He says, “If you have faith like a mustard seed, if you speak to the mulberry tree and say, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the middle of the sea,’ it will obey you,” He says.

Why the mountain will obey words, why even the tree will obey faith when it is applied against it? Because faith is the parent force. That is what I spoke to you about last week. Faith is what we call a parent force. Parents are ones that brought us into the world. That's why we call them parents. We call faith a parent force because faith brought everything. It created everything. It's the force that created everything. Since faith is a parent force that created everything, everything obeys this parent force. This force that created everything is obeyed by everything, all the created things obey the power that created it. And that is the power of faith. That is why Jesus could say, “Speak to the mountain, and it'll be thrown into the sea and speak to the tree, it will obey you,” He says. And you see examples of people applying faith against even nature and nature obeys. And how that can be so is because faith is the parent force when applied against nature also, it works because all created things obey the thing which created it.

All right. Now, today, I want to talk about how faith not only created everything that we see. Faith also is the force that meets all our needs on this earth. That's what I want to talk about. How faith not only created everything, faith also is the way that every need of our life on this earth is supplied. Now, it says the word of God, God used word to create everything, and He has given us His word. What we have in our hands is God's word. The word that He used to create that powerful word is given to us in this form. Why is God's word given to us in this form? So that we can have this rich resource of His words that He used to create the world and use it to meet our needs, apply this force of faith in our lives to meet our needs. That's what I want to talk about today. Now, I feel that that is why we need to understand that the understanding concerning the word is very important because it is the word that meets all our needs today. It is the understanding of the word that is going to help us greatly.

So Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3 tells us that faith which belongs to the unseen realm has the ability as the parent force to meet all our needs, in the seen realm today, in this world today. He created the world framed them with his word and today we take the words that He has given to us that He used to create and use them to frame our life, to frame our future, to frame our world around us. Now, God wants us to really understand faith and God wants us to understand how to use His word. Please turn with me to Romans chapter 1 verse 19 and 20. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. He’s talking about unbelievers. “Some people claim that they have not seen God therefore, they don't know God and their question in the end is going to be, they're going to use it as an excuse,” he says. When they stand before God in judgment, they're going to say, “How can we know you, Because you are a God who cannot be seen? How do you expect us to know you? If we can see you we know you. We cannot see you. Then how do we know you? We don't know you because couldn't see you.” “And that logic won't work,” he says, because what may be known about God or of God is known or is manifest in them or it is manifest or evident among them.

That is what ‘manifest in them’ means. It is evident among them. It is very plain among them, for God has shown it to them. Whatever people need to know about God, God has shown it to them. See, everybody wants to know God. They think they can only know Him if they can see Him. And if they can't see Him, they then make all kinds of images to satisfy themselves so they can worship some image and think of it as God because without an image, they find it difficult to worship God. But in the Bible, we read that God commands us not to make any images of God because images reduce God to a little thing. That is wrong, because God is so huge and vast and big, and He cannot be contained in the little image. He cannot be put within a temple or a church or anywhere. He’s bigger than everything. But how do we know God? How can we understand God and know God? Paul says, “God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.” How did God show Himself to them? See, God is a self-disclosing God. If He does not graciously open up Himself and disclose Himself, we cannot know Him. If He decides to hide himself from us, there is nothing that you and I can do will help us know Him. We cannot possibly know Him even though we do all kinds of research. We cannot know Him if He decides to hide Himself.

But the most wonderful thing about God is He has not decided to hide Himself. He wants to be known. He wants people to see Him, even though He cannot be seen. He wants people to know Him intimately, and have a relationship with Him. Come to Him and feel comfortable with Him and know Him, know His character, know who He is, know His love and understand Him. God wants to be known. So He has revealed Himself in so many ways, and how has He revealed Himself? Paul says that, “He is manifest in them and among them,” he says. “Even among the unbelievers,” he says. For since the creation of the world. Look at verse 20, he talks about how He did it. How God discloses Himself. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. The invisible attributes of God such as His power and His Godhead, that means His attributes, His nature, His character, all of this is made known. How did He make it known? It is made known since the creation of the world through the created things. “If you look at creation, you can see God,” he says.

Now, you can very well see God in the creation. Look at the creation. Look at the way He created. He created everything and finally created man. He thought about everything that man would ever need, and created and put it out there. Never forgot even one thing. Some people think, “Well, he forgot one thing, brother. He forgot the woman. Then man, when he was naming all the animals, he felt very moved by the fact that they all came in pairs as male and female. So he complained to God and went to the God and said, ‘Everybody's got a female companion. And here I am single, and you have not given me a companion.’” And then, one fellow told the story like this, that God said, “Well, I've forgotten. I'm sorry. I'll go ahead and make a woman for you.” Now, this is the way some people understand the Bible. But all these things are not in the Bible. The Bible says that before man ever named the animals. You read the story in chapter 2, I don't have the time to read it. Before man ever got to name the animals and started feeling lonely and all that, before he did that, God called man and said, “It's not good for you to be alone. I will make a helper for you.”

God already decided and stated that he should not be alone, that He will make a helpmeet. And when the time came to make a helpmeet for him, God put him to sleep and performed the first surgery in the Garden of Eden. Opened him up and took out one of his bones, and out of it, made the woman and presented her to him. And she was taken from his flesh, from his bone. So he says, “Behold, she's the bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He didn't say, “Who's this woman? Where did you get her?” He said, “She's the bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He understood where she came from. That is why the Bible says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, the two shall be one flesh,” because they came literally from one flesh. God wanted to demonstrate what marriage is supposed to be. Therefore, He already had this idea of making the woman the companion for man in that way. That is why He waited until man was made, and from man, from his flesh, he took a bone and made the woman to demonstrate this marriage union and how two people become one, they become one flesh. So God never forgot anything. Woman is not an afterthought of God. It was all planned and purposed by God.

God can never forget anything. God is not an old man, senile and forgetting and all that. God is God. He’s all wise and He's very purposeful. He is very deliberate in His creation. He created everything first, finally He created man. Why? Because He wanted to create everything that man would ever need. His heart is such, His love is such. When you see the creation you see God's love, God's concern and God's goodness, God's kindness towards mankind, how much He plans, how wonderfully He prepares a garden and places man there. The heart of God, the attributes of God, the nature of God can be known, even though He cannot be known by seeing, it can be known through the way He has created everything and finally He created man. Look at man, just like God is a tripartite being, three-part being Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, man is a tripartite being. He is spirit, soul, and body. Man is a spirit just like God is a spirit. Therefore man’s spirit corresponds to God who is a spirit. Man lives in a body made of flesh. Jesus is God who came in flesh. Therefore, man's body corresponds to the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Man's soul is the thing that has the ability to think, analyze, decide. That is where his intellect, will, and emotions are. The soul is the mind. That is where these faculties are. This is where he's able to decide, and desire and then act. The soul is the link between the spirit and body. That's how the soul functions. And the Holy Spirit is very similar to the soul. Just like the mind guides us, enables us to think and desire and so on, the Holy Spirit also is a wonderful guide. So, man's spirit corresponds to God who's a spirit, man's body corresponds to Jesus, the second person of Trinity, man’s soul corresponds to the third person of Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

So like this, you can go on explaining. Bible scholars go on giving example after example of how there is the likeness and image of God in man. And even in creation you can see God and literally understand deep things about God through the creation. We don't want to go any more than that right now because we have to get to other things, so I will stop with that. You can look at the creation, including man, who's a created being, and see God and understand God. There is not going to be any excuse for anybody in the end that will stand before God and say, “I didn't know you because I couldn't see you.” There is enough in evidence in the created world, enough manifest about God in the world for man to know God through the creation. From the day world was created God has made a self-disclosure and declared Himself to man, and shown Himself to man, and revealed Himself to man so that man can know God.

Why does God want man to know Him? God wants man to know Him, because God wants us to understand what kind of a person He is, and not only that, He wants us to understand the unseen kingdom, the kingdom of God, that is in us, the kingdom is already in us, and how the kingdom works, and so on. Not only that, God wants us to understand the ability of the unseen realm to meet every need in the seen realm on earth today. D. L. Moody, a great preacher that lived long time ago, and established the Moody Bible Church in Chicago, and preached extensively in England and America, and made a big impact in his days, he says this, “The laws of the spirit world that created this earth and everything we see,” now listen to this, “are extended into the earth and clearly revealed the laws of the spirit world.” In other words, he says, “The laws of the spirit world which created everything that we see are extended.” That means the laws that God used to create this world that we see, the spiritual laws, from the spirit world, the laws that God used to create this world, when He got through creation, He extended those laws and planted those laws in the earthly creation, and works it every day in the earthly creation, they are extended into the earth. And those laws clearly reveal the laws of the spirit world, and how the spirit world functions. God knows that it's very difficult for us to understand the spirit world. So He has brought the laws of the spirit world and made it effective also here in this earth in our life. I'll show you how.

One such law is the law of faith. Now, that is why last week when I spoke, I showed you how faith seems difficult to understand. But fear is also like faith, it's the opposite force. And I showed you how fear we very easily understand. Why? As fallen creatures we understand and experience fear every day. Fear about this, fear about that. We know what fear is. I don't have to give examples of fear. Everybody knows and has experience with fear. Nobody will say, “I don't have any.” People may say, “I have no experience with faith,” because we are fallen creatures. Most of us, we came from a fallen world and came into Christ. Now we have to learn faith. Fear has been there with us ever since we were a little child. As we grew up, one of the first things we learned as fallen creatures is fear. Child is fearless when it's born, and when it's growing very young, the child is fearless. But then one of the earliest things that the child learns is to fear. When you understand fear, I showed you last week, you can understand faith because fear and faith work pretty much in the same way.

So let me show you how this law, the spiritual law of faith operates in this world also. See, in this world, we experience faith, humanly speaking. In a human level, we experience faith every day. We buy a ticket on the train to go from here to Bangalore. And when we buy a ticket and get on the train, we don't get down at Katpadi and once again ask somebody, “Is this going to Bangalore?” We simply believe that this is going to Bangalore because the train says it's a train to Bangalore and the number matches and so on. So we sit in the train, we don't get on every station and get up every 15 minutes and go and ask the conductor, “Is this the train going to Bangalore?” We trust, we believe. And most of the time it's late, yet we believe. Sometimes it could even stop before Bangalore for some reason and drop us there but we still believe. We believe that this is going to Bangalore, if someone kept asking if this is going to Bangalore, we’d say, “Just shut up and sit down. Don't be crazy. Look at your ticket, it says it's going to Bangalore.” So you experience faith in that very simple way. You drive your car over a bridge, you don't get down and check the bridge and see if it will fall or stand as you drive your car. You trust and you just drive on. So every day you experience faith. You experience faith at home. Whatever your wife says, you believe and whatever the husband says the wife believes, they ought to.

Without faith it is impossible to please wife. Without faith it is impossible to please husband also, without faith it is impossible to please children. Without faith it is impossible to please parents. And without faith it is impossible to please God. You're going to have a relationship with God, you got to believe Him. You got to trust Him. When He says something you believe Him. That is the basis of a relationship. So faith, we even experience it on a human level. So let me give you an example of how God has put faith in this world. Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians 4:13. After we look at 13, I'm going to go to verse 17 and 18 also. But let's look at 13 first, okay. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke.” This is written in the Psalms, the psalmist says it and he is quoting it here. According to what is written, “I believed, therefore I speak.” We have the same spirit, just like the psalmist, he says. Where he says, I believed and therefore I spoke. We also believe and therefore speak. You can see it every day in operation. You see people speak, they are speaking what they believe. You want to know what they believe? Just give them an opportunity to open their mouth and speak then you will know what they believe.

Bible says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So whatever people believe that is what they speak. This is how people live every day. “So the spirit of faith is like that,” he says. Whatever we believe, we speak. Not only we believe and speak whatever we believe, it is also true that whatever we speak, we end up believing. Now, this a lot of people believe, that is why they want us to believe certain things, so they are lying again and again. They will lie so that by saying the lie again and again, they hope that you will believe. The problem is by saying a lie again and again, you yourself, start believing your lie. You speak what you believe but it is also true that you end up believing what you speak. If you keep on speaking something you end up believing whatever you’re speaking, even though you're not believing it right now, by speaking it again and again you will end up believing it. This is a law in operation in this world. People speak out of the abundance of the heart. Whatever comes out of their mouth is coming from the heart. And if it's not, if they're speaking something that they don't believe soon you'll find that they start believing it just because they're speaking it. That's the way this law operates.

Now faith is a law of the new covenant. Under the old covenant there is a law of works. In the new covenant, there is a law of faith. Romans chapter 3 verse 27 calls faith a law. Now what is this? Why faith is a law of the new covenant? Why not the law works? Because works is not going to save, works is never meant to save, works was given in the old testament to show that man is a sinner and that he needs a savior. Under the new covenant the Savior has come. So it is not works, it is now faith that is very important. That is why faith this the law. The issue is not, do this and don't this, the issue is, do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe that He is the Son of God? Do you believe that He died for your sins? Do you believe that He raised from the dead? Do you believe and do you confess Him as your Lord and Savior. So faith is the law of the new covenant.

Now let's see how this law works. Look at 2nd Corinthians the same chapter, chapter 4 verse 17 and 18, a very interesting portion demonstrating to us how faith works. 16 and 17. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. That's verse 16. Verse 17. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Now, many times I've heard, back in the old days, verse 17 is spoken very often, that when they speak about our affliction, they will always say, this affliction that you have will work a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. This is for the glory of God, and something good will come out of it. Affliction, therefore, should not be feared, affliction is okay. It's good in fact, because it's going to work towards a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. But they have left out verse 18. Verse 18 is very important to the understanding of verse 17. Is verse 17 saying that affliction is good, because it's going to work a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory? No, look at this, it says, it will work a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen. So it is not going to bring great glory for everybody, it is going to bring great glory in and through people who do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

This is very difficult to understand in fact because, “What you see you cannot look at, what you cannot see you must look at,” it says. Now, one fellow told me, “This is why I cannot understand the Bible. This is so illogical. ‘What you can see you cannot look at, what you cannot see you must look at,’ it says. How do you do this?” Well, let me explain. That's why preachers are there. It says, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. You know what it's talking about? It's an indication that it's talking about affliction, problems of life, the troubles that we encounter in life. It is talking about how to overcome them, and how to win over them and overcome them, and so on. How do we do it? He says, when you're undergoing the problems and difficulties and challenges in your life, tough times in your life, how do you overcome it by faith? That is the subject here. How do you overcome it? It says, “Don't look at the things that are seen.” Now, if you are being afflicted with a sickness, what is seen is sickness, right? Things that are een are the sickness, the trouble that you're undergoing is sickness. And the Bible is saying, “Do not look at your sickness. Do not meditate on it, do not be talking about it, do not be always being worried about it, do not be always carrying a burden about it. Don't be looking at it all the time.

If somebody has a sickness to look at it all the time and be aware of it and have the meditation of it all day, and then at the end of the day, when they go to sleep, they go to sleep with the thought about it. And even when they're lying in the bed with their words are, “I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I don't know how long I’ll live. I don't know what the doctor's report is going to say. I don't know what is going to happen to me.” And then they close their eyes. Just imagine what they'll be dreaming all night. They'll be dreaming all bad dreams. They'll be seeing a hearse passing by, themselves in it and all kinds of scenes will come, I bet. In the morning, they wake up and the first thing they do is start talking about it. They phone people, talk to people, they mention this, and this is the central part of their talk and their conversation.

It says, “Don't do that. Do not be looking at the things which are seen.” To look at the things which are seen you don't need a believer. A believer must be higher than that. Everybody is an expert at looking at things that are seen, the seen problems, the seen difficulties. Everybody has a nature to complain about it and be very aware and very conscious of their problems and concentrate on their problems. But a believer must be different. We don't go to church and carry a big Bible and read it and meditate on it and get all spirit filled and go and do wonderful worship and hear preaching and all, just to be just like everybody else. No, we are a special class of people. We don't look at the things which are seen. Then what do we look at? “Things which are not seen,” it says. Don't look at the things which are seen. Look at the things which are not seen. Now, for example, if sickness is the seen, what is the the things that are not seen? Well-being, healing. If sickness is what you can see, then what is the thing that you cannot see? It is your healing. That is what you're not able to see.

Bible says, you look at it. That's where the people have problem. They say, “How can I see what cannot be seen? I cannot. If it's there, I can see it. It's not there.” Well, let me tell you where you can see your healing. You can see the healing, not anywhere else. You cannot see it in your body. You cannot see it in the doctor's prescription. You cannot see it in the medical report. But you can see it in the word of God. This is exactly what it says. Now, it's easy to understand. What it is saying is, you're going through some difficulty, maybe you don't have enough money to meet all your needs, financial problem is your biggest problem... I remember when I was studying abroad, and I didn't have any money, every day I used to pray only about money. My prayer was only about money, because that's what I didn't have. I didn't even have money to wash my clothes. So my prayer was only for money. Somebody took me to a meeting where this great faith preacher was preaching. A sermon where everybody learned about faith. He said, “For 25 years I've not prayed for money.” I said, “Wait a minute, man. What are you talking about? I'm praying every day for money. You’re saying, “For 25 years I've not prayed about money and I don't even worry about money,” he says.” I learned a very big thing that I became a follower of this guy and began to learn from him because he shook me up that day. He showed me that that's not the way to deal with your problem of not having money. There’s another way to deal with it. Don't be complaining about it. Don't be going around telling everybody you don't have money. Don't be always looking at it. Don't be looking at yourself in light of the fact that you don't have money. How do you look at yourself? Begin to go to the word of God and see God's rich resources and how much you have in Christ Jesus.

I thought he was crazy when he said for 25 years he never prayed for money. And he had a lot of money. And I was just sitting there and saying, “My God, tell me, brother, please. I need to know how I can have some money because I don't have any money.” And he did tell us. He said, “I go here and keep looking at the word of God and what it tells me about my finances.” What it tells me, the Supplier of my need is here. I see Him supplying needs of people. I see Him never leaving anybody without help. I see Him coming to their help in all kinds of situation and rescuing them from... I see Him coming and canceling people's debts, rescuing them from their debts. I see Him coming and keep meeting widows’ needs, doing miracles in their homes. I see God as a wonderful miracle worker who turns such situations around. That's the Bible. That is why God has given to us the word of God. The word of God paints a picture of who God is. When I go here, I see the picture of who He is. Of His love, of His concern and care about me, what He will do for me, what He has done for me, what redemption has done, all of these things are presented here.

So when you don't look at the things which are seen, what you're going through, but keep looking at the word... Some people say, “Yeah, I read the Bible every day but I don't see anything. I don't see God. When I read it, I don't immediately get consoled that God is going to meet my need, and supply my needs and all of that. I can't see it.” Well, if you can’t see it here, then you can’t have it. It's very important you see it. Why a person is not able to see it is because there is no understanding. See, in the word, understanding is very important. Understanding comes when light comes. Somebody must turn the light on. When light comes, when the intensity of the light increases, you begin to see things you've never seen before. How many times in my house I'll battle this thing between a blue and a black, I can't tell the difference. That light somehow and I am not also an expert on colors. Somebody's got to tell me what is what. So I'll pick up a blue pant and I will wear it in the place of a black pant. I'm supposed to wear black pants and I'll be wearing a blue. And my wife will come say, “You're wearing black. Don't you know this is black?” And we’ll have an argument. “Oh this is blue,” she’ll say. I'll say, “This is black.” And then everyone else in the house will come and they'll side with her. Majority goes her side. And then I'm mad and I said, “No, no, this is blue only. I know it's blue. You don't know.” And I'll walk out of the house and there is sunlight and lo and behold, it is blue. What happened? All of a sudden my mind opens up, my eyes are beginning to see. It is because I'm looking at it from another angle with intensity of light. There's more light shining and I can see, “Whoa. My goodness. I'm a fool. I've got a I've got a blue pant in the place of a black.” Many times it has happened, with ties, with everything.

I came here once for a graduation supposed to wear the black pants with a jacket like this, and I wore a blue and then they took pictures. You should see how ugly the pictures are. I'll tell you, I realized that it was blue only when I saw the pictures. They told me, “This is blue,” I didn’t listen. And then only I saw. So light is very important. You should appreciate light. You can have the Bible, you can read the Bible, you can hear preaching, but when light is not there, when there is no sufficient light, you do not understand it in a way that it can help you. The Bible says you shall know the truth. That means you shall understand the truth. And that truth that you understand will set you free. It doesn't say, “Take this Bible and rub it on your head, it will set you free.” I say that because I've seen some people take the Bible and put it on people's head. No, it is not by rubbing. This is not given for rubbing. This is given not for kissing, and worshiping and bowing and all that. This is given so that we may understand. When you understand, that moment you begin to understand what it says, when your eyes are open and the Spirit of God shines the light inside, and you begin to know what it says, then everything changed. “My God. I never saw that. That is the truth. I can see it now.” And how many times have you experienced that? We've all experienced that. And that should happen every single day for us. All right.

So if you can't see you can't have it. If you get out this morning and if it’s pitch dark out there, will you be able to see your car and get to your car? You will have difficulty. Someone has to turn the light on, if it’s pitch dark so that you can see what is there and get to your car and get in your car and drive your car. Now, if your car is parked out there, you should not have any problem getting out of here and going getting in your car and driving home today because it's your car. You paid for it. It's in your name. And you've got the keys and you are the owner. You have every right to get into it and drive it home. You don't call your pastor and say, “Please, pray brother today I need to get in the car. And I need to drive the car.” No. Because knowledge, that this car is yours. I have a car standing out there, after the service, I'm going to get in it and go home. I'm not sending SMS everywhere with prayer request so that I can get in my car and drive home. It'll be foolish. People will think I've gone crazy if I did that. Why? Because my knowledge tells me. I don't do things like that because I know for sure that it's my car. It's got my name on it. I got the keys to it. I got every right. Nobody can stop me from getting into my car and driving home because it's mine.

Now, that's the way spiritual things are. That's the way faith works. 2nd Peter chapter 1 talks about how God has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness. Notice those two words. Life means our earthly life, our ordinary life, day to day life and godliness is spiritual life. God has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. How? How has he given us everything? He has given it in the form of His precious word, it says. When He gave these words, God knew that this word is enough to meet all our needs. That whatever we would need in this earth... See, before God made man, He made a beautiful garden of Eden, put everything that man would need there so that he will never want anything and then only placed man. When God made us a new creation, He gave us this. Every need of ours will be supplied through the word of God. That is why God has given us the word of God. To use this to obtain everything that we need. It is through this, by faith in this, that we receive everything. Alright. So, it should not be any difficult when we understand what is ours. When we understand what is ours, then faith does not become a concern. Faith is there but you're not very worried about, is it going to work? Do I have the faith? Please pray for my faith. All of that is not there because knowledge… that is why 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 3 says, all things pertaining to life and godliness He’s given to us through the precious word. And then if you read on little further three verses later, it says add to faith, virtue and other things, certain virtues are to be added to faith. And one of the virtues to be added to faith is knowledge.

Very important. Knowledge is very important. The light concerning the word is very important. Just like if I get out there, I'll get into the car and go home, that is knowledge that it's mine, and I have the right to use it and I have the right to get home in it. In the same way, when you have the knowledge you will understand and begin to see that everything that you believe for, and stand in faith for today and that you can believe for today, everything that God has given to you is already paid for. It's in your name. See, that knowledge is very important, already paid for. It's yours in and through Jesus Christ. The Bible says all the promises of God are aye and amen. You know what the meaning of that is? When Christ completed His work on the cross, that is God's yes to all the promises. All the promises are in Christ now, yes. God says, “Yes.” So God says the yes in and through the work of Christ, and you say the amen to it. So every time you need to go to the Bible and read the Bible and read the promises of God, God says, “Yes,” and you say, “Amen.” A lot of people don't say it, they’d say, “Well, I see it says, brother, but I have one doubt. I see it says that by His stripes we are healed, but then how is that person sick?” So that's not an amen. That is a confusion. Instead of saying amen, we're asking questions. God says, “Yes,” and you say, “Amen.” You try that from today. Every time you take the word of God and read the promises of God, you consider that promise as yours in and through Christ Jesus, through the cross of Calvary it's yours. And God has declared a yes to that promise. And therefore, you say, “Lord, thank you, Lord. It is an Amen from me. I say amen to it.”

In the book of Psalms, I read to you the other day how your wife will be, how your children will be, how your house will be and all that. All these promises. What the righteous man's blessings are. All these are promises. God has declared it, it’s yes. These are all blessings, they are ours. So when you read that you say, “Lord, I declare Amen. Whatever you said, ‘Yes,’ I say amen to it. Because you said yes to it.” Everything is aye and amen. Aye means yes. Amen is from me. God says, “Aye,” and I say amen. So, it's fully paid for. See, when a farmer plants a seed, and waters it and takes care of it, and so on, he's not really worried about whether there’s going to be a harvest or not, he's expecting a harvest. He's pretty sure about a harvest. Why? Because he's done whatever needs to be done. He knows that this is a law. The sowing and reaping is a law that if he has done it, it will work. He has too much knowledge that's why it doesn't worry. Once he has planted, once he watered, once he has done all that he’s supposed to do, then it's just a matter of time that the harvest should come and he is simply waiting for it. So the knowledge is very important. To understand that is very important. Light is very important. All right.

We're talking about the spiritual law working in this life. We saw how whatever we believe that's what we speak. And if we speak whatever we don't believe also, if you continue to speak it, you end up believing it. This is a spiritual law that works even on human level. That is how even unsaved people out of evil heart they produce evil things. They’re production centers, they are manufacturers, they are manufacturing evil, how? With an evil heart they're producing evil things. That heart is still working. They’re producing evil things. A good man, or of a good heart, produces good things. It doesn't work just for the good man, it works for the evil man also. It works for the unbeliever also. Even on a worldly level, you can understand the spiritual principle. The sowing and reaping is a spiritual principle. It works equally on the believer and the unbeliever. Therefore, the parable of the sower which I've taught much about is the best parable to go to understand the kingdom of God and the things of God. God has put a put that parable here in three gospels, Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8 you read that parable. That is the mother of all parables, that's the parable that you need to understand. Jesus said, “If you don't understand this parable, how are you going to understand the kingdom?”

So, in that Jesus depicts the word as a seed. He says, “Sower went to sow,” and then He says, “The sower sows the word.” It's not my interpretation, He says that. The sower sows the word. So, what are we supposed to do? I said, we believe and speak. That is how faith operates. We fill ourselves with a belief, we believe certain things, and therefore we speak. Now, how does a believer sow the word of God? If it's tomato seeds that we bought, we know how to sow it. I don't have to take a lesson on it. I know how to sow it. But if the word is a seed, then I got to understand how to sow the word of God as a seed. Since it's the word the Bible teaches, it is sown by speaking or confessing because it's the word. So you begin to confess. Now people say, “Why should I confess? I don't believe this confession.” But it's a spiritual law, because word is a seed, and if it's a seed, it must be sown. Since it is a word seed, it can be only sown by speaking because that's the nature of that seed. Only by speaking you can sow it. People say, “Well, I don't understand the sowing business. I don't understand this confession business. Why should I confess?” They say. Well, because it is a seed, it must be sown. It must be sown through speaking and it is through confession we speak and sow this.

I'll tell you why you must sow. People are asking, “Why should I sow and what will confession do?” One fella said, “What is this nonsense about confession?” I said, “Confession is sowing, man, sowing.” “Sowing where?” He said. “Sowing in your heart. Your heart is the soil, the word of God is the seed.” “How do you sow the word in your heart?” “By confessing it you sow it in your heart.” He said, “What will the word of God do?” He's a churchgoer. He said, “What will the word of God do?” I said, “If the seed had any mouth, it will tell you, please, if you got tomato seeds, and if it had a mouth to speak, it'll tell you, ‘Put me in the soil. Just take me and bury me there. Just plow the ground, prepare the ground and put me in there. I'll show you what I can do. I'll show you what I can produce.” Until you keep it in your hand and shake it and keep it in your shelf and kiss it every morning and evening, until you keep on just worshiping it and rubbing it on your head, it will not do anything. The seed will not do anything. The seed is to be sown. “What will it do?” He says. I said, “It will produce.” He said, “What will it produce?” I said, “It will produce what it says.” He says, “Oh, this is something new. Are you sure this is correct doctrine?” See how difficult it is for people to get this. I said, “Go read Jesus’ parable, parable of the sower and ask God to enlighten you, shed light on you, so that you can understand this. Because if you don't understand this, you will never understand spiritual life. Law of sowing and reaping and law of faith. All of these things are spiritual laws that have been extended from the spiritual world into the natural world. And now we can see it in operation in the natural sowing and reaping. It’s part of the natural world that is there. God has put it there so that we can understand spiritual life through it.”

But people have such a difficulty in understanding how will the word do it? Let me give you two examples before closing. One example is, a photograph in a newspaper. If you saw a photograph in a newspaper, if you look closely with a magnifying glass, preferably, you can see dots. Why you see thousands of dots in that picture? The picture is made up of dots. The dots make up the picture. There may be 3000 dots that made up that picture. But the thing is, the same number of dots, the same number that is there in the picture that you're looking at, suppose you're looking at a picture of a husband and wife with their two children sitting and eating happily and smiling at one another, you take that picture and the dots there and you rearrange it you can produce a picture where a house is burning. You can produce a picture of an automobile accident where five people are killed, the entire family is killed or something like that. You can produce a picture where the house is washed away in a flood. The same dots can produce different kinds of picture by simple rearrangement of the dots. That's the way the technology works. That is how pictures are produced.

The thing is this, when God gives us the word, there is a picture in that word. The dots are arranged by God to produce that picture. Because God is the one that is giving us a picture through the word. He tells you, “Your wife shall be like this, your husband shall be like this, your home shall be like this, the work of your hands shall be like this, you will be like this.” “This is the way a righteous man will be,” the Bible declares. So God is drawing a picture. The picture is made up of dots. Don't ever meddle with the dots. Don't change the picture. One fella said, “Well, it says the wife will be like that. But my wife, brother is different. You know where she comes from? That's the problem. Her whole family is the problem. They're all like this. So what do you want me to do?” I said, “The Bible doesn't say she is like that. The Bible says she shall be like this. And God knows and I know she's not like this. So what you do is you take this picture and make it the picture in your heart. Don't change the picture. Don't alter the picture. Don't rearrange the dots.”

Now, today, we have the hybrids. Hybrid is where you take a lower class of plant, breed it with a higher, and then you produce something, the seedless grapes, and all of these things come from it. And they produce this. We don't know if we want to call it hybrid or low-breed. Because whatever comes out of it can produce nothing. And if it can ever produce it can produce only the lower, it always goes to the lower form they say. I don't understand agriculture but this is very interesting to me. So a lot of people are doing this hybrid business in church also, with regard to the Bible. The Bible says, the family shall be like this. They say, “But not every family, brother. Don't tell me that.”

One pastor said to me, “Sometimes the word of God works and does what it says, but not to everybody and not all the time.” I said, “We don't need a preacher for that. Everybody is saying that? Why are you a preacher for that?” He said, “Sometimes for some people it’ll work, but not all the time, and for everybody, it won't work.” But the Bible says this is the portion of the righteous. This is the blessing that God declares on the righteous. “This is how the family shall be,” He says. But he says, “No.” What he's doing is, taking something lower, and mixing it with this high class thing and making it hybrid. What is going to happen is that he's going to produce the lower form only. Out of it, success is not going to come. Success in family life is not going to come, what is going to come is failure in family life. See, the hybrid will never produce according to the higher grade. It will always go to the lower form. It will only produce the failure. You take faith and mix it with doubt, you take faith and mix it with a lot of confusion, the confusion will bring failure only because you're contaminating it. In Leviticus, there is a very interesting verse that you shall not mingle the seed, mix the seed. God is advising against it. Particularly with regard to the word you should never do it. The word presents a picture. It is a pure picture coming from the mind and the heart and the plan and purpose of the infinite God, all-wise God. Keep that picture. That is a picture you should try to work towards. And you should aim at.

Second example is the copying machine. We all have copying machines these days, it’s become very common. How does it copy? When you copy a piece of something that's on a piece of paper, when you make a copy of it, do you sit down and proofread it, to see if the exact same thing has come? Are you going to sit and proofread it? No. Why? Because the copying machine simply duplicates whatever is here. Exactly. There's no chance that this paper will say something and the other paper will change. Not even a spelling change can happen. Nothing can. Not even a dot or a comma can be changed. Nothing can be changed. Exactly as it is here, it is reproduced. And how does it work? How does the copying machine work? You put the thing that you want to copy into the copying machine and there are blank papers there, into which you want a copy. You put the paper here and you shut it because there's going to be a light that's coming out. You don't want that to blind your eyes. It's bright light, powerful light. That light comes and captures this image. Whether it's a letter or a picture, or whatever it is, it captures this image, polarizes this paper, captures this image, and polarizes that the empty paper that is there, the blank paper that is there, takes this image and imprints it on it. Takes this image and copies it on it. Now, if you hurriedly pull the paper out at that point, you will find nothing. It will be looking like a blank paper. But it is not a blank paper. On that white sheet is this picture imprinted, but your eyes cannot see it. It is there, it has to go through one more process, but you pulled it too soon. So if you put it back, what will happen is, it will go through the next process where the carbon cartridge is there, it will go through that, it will pass through that. As it passes through that, the carbon in that cartridge, that black thing or the color things, nowadays you can do even color, that is smeared on the lines of the picture, the figure that is here, whether it's a letter or picture, that particular lines alone are colored with the carbon. Not the whole paper. The whole paper doesn't come out black, only the letters copy the black, that is how it comes out. What is the result? The result is exact copy of what you put in, you get another copy. It's an exact copy. Nothing changes.

Now, the word of God works like that. When you meditate upon the word of God, when you take the word of God and spend time with it, understand it, just like that light, the powerful light that shines and takes the picture that is there in the thing that you want to copy, and captures it and puts it on the other paper to make a copy, what the word of God does is this, when God shines His light of understanding in your heart into the word that you are now paying attention to, God shines His powerful light and that light polarizes that thing and imprints that image that is there in the word of God in your heart, so that your heart captures the image that is presented by God's word. It is imprinted there. But then you have to wait for the next process to take place. The printout must happen. Now, here there's no carbon cartridge. The printer comes in real life. What happens is, once the image is captured, then it's just a matter of time that it begins to show forth and come out in real life. It copies in real life exactly like it. Just imagine this happening in your life. You read the word of God, the Spirit of God helps you understand it, shines that bright light. Takes this image, helps you to understand it so that your heart begins to conceive it, grasp it and that image is imprinted indelibly in your heart, and then it is printed out in the form of real life experience. You are experiencing exactly what the word of God says. What the Word says is duplicated in your life. That's the way the word of God works.

So, when you look at the Bible, look at it like that. God has given it to you full of promises. Every promise built in it the DNA to produce whatever it says. It is able to produce the healing that it promises. It is able to produce the family like it promises. It is able to produce a success in the work of your hands as it promises. It is able to produce a future like it promises. It is able to produce and make your children like it promises. It is able to make everything right just like it promises. God who framed the world with the word of God has given to us the same resource so that we can also take it and frame our world with the word of God and get a printout of the Bible where our life will become a replica of what the Bible says. The blessings of redemption can be seen in our lives in reality. Amen.

What an amazing thing this is. Heaven’s spiritual laws. Spiritual laws that belong to the unseen world has now been extended in this world just like D. L. Moody says. It's now part of this world. Why? It should work in this world. If it created the whole thing, everything that we see, it can create everything that we need. It is no problem. Whatever your need is, whatever your problem is, whatever your challenge is, whatever your difficulty is, God has given to you the word to make all things right. You take every chaos, emptiness and darkness and deal with it through the word of God. Correct it and make it a beautiful world just like God made it through the application of God's word. By faith you build that. Shall we all stand? We'll continue to look at it next week.